


Family Game Night

by AdrianaintheSnow



Series: Labeled [18]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Antics With Superpowers, Family Game Night, Implications of an imminent marital dispute there at the end, M/M, Slight irresponsible parenting in the second chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:29:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23675401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdrianaintheSnow/pseuds/AdrianaintheSnow
Summary: The boys have a nice family game night. Patton gets to deal with figuring out how to not let them cheat with their superpowers.Now with second chapter of dumb science nerd father and his curiosity-killed-the-cat idiot child play with electricity and superpowers.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Labeled [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616662
Comments: 143
Kudos: 500





	1. Chapter 1

“I still don’t know why we can’t play monopoly,” Logan grumbled.

“Because we are not exposing Virgil to a Logan who has just lost monopoly.”

“I would not lose,” Logan objected with a glare. “I have updated my strategy.”

Patton rolled his eyes. “No,” he said firmly, continue to dig through the game closet. “Ooo how about Operation?!”

“I’ve never played that,” Virgil said. He’d never played a lot of the games he could see in the closet. None of his other foster families had ever done the whole ‘family game night’ thing. Now that Virgil and Logan were both off for winter break and Patton had some time off after New Years, the two adults (well Patton) had decided they should do something other than just watch movies together and so they were going to play a board game.

“Well, Logan and I are pretty evenly matched, with the altered rules at least. So, that would be a good one.” Patton grabbed the box out of the cabinet.

“Altered rules?” Virgil asked.

“Logan isn’t allowed to use his hands,” Patton explained as he carried the box into the living room.

“Why?” Virgil asked confused.

“Ah, because he’s going to cheat with his powers anyway. So, this just evens the playing field.”

“I do not cheat,” Logan protested. “I use my tactical advantages.”

“Mhmm.”

“Really, it’s you who is cheating since you’re a surgeon!”

“Mhmmmmm.” Logan poked him on the shoulder. Patton stuck out his tongue in response. “Just, go make yourself useful and get the snacks while I set this up.” Logan narrowed his eyes at him before leaning forward to kiss him on the nose. He turned to go into the kitchen. Wow. Those two were actually ridiculous.

“Can I help?” Virgil asked as Patton started to get the game out of the box.

“You can go get some pillows from the closet if you want,” Patton said. “Make sure to only get floor pillows though because we’re going to sit on them around the coffee table.”

Virgil nodded and walked to the closet. Part of him thought the blankets and pillows in the closet thing was ridiculous (let alone the separate shelf for ones allowed on the floor), but it wasn’t the weirdest rule that had ever been imposed on Virgil and Logan hadn’t even yelled at him the couple of times he’d forgotten.

He brought back an armful of pillows and dumped them on the floor. Missy immediately hopped on top of the pile, claiming one as her own for the night.

“You have a dog bed,” Logan pointed out when he came in with a bowl of popcorn, mugs of hot chocolate, and an enormous bag of M&Ms. She rolled over onto her back lazily and barked. He walked over to snag two pillows from the pile while the food and drinks settled down on the table behind him and patted the dog on the head while he did.

He tossed one at Patton who caught it with a dramatic “ooph” and pretended to be bowled over. He sat back up after a moment and tore open the M&M’s bag.

“Well it _was_ a resealable bag,” Logan said settling down onto his own pillow next to the coffee table.

Patton rolled his eyes. “We eat the whole bag between the two of us let alone with another mouth.”

“That’s because you always tear it so it can’t be resealed.”

“Logan if you can manage not to finish off ½ of the bag tonight, I will eat my pillow.” He dumped about 1/3 of the bag into the popcorn and then set the rest of the bag between him and Logan. He turned away from Logan’s pout and smiled as Virgil pulled his own pillow up to the side of the coffee table. “You said you’d never played, right?” he asked.

After a quick explanation of the regular rules and then one of the rules imposed on Logan to prevent cheating, they started playing. It became clear rather quickly that Virgil was very bad at this game. Or, at least, Patton and Logan were very good at it. Patton’s hand was steady and precise. He quickly started to accumulate money from “successful operations.” Logan, despite the handicap of only being able to use his powers to manipulate the tweezers, managed to only set the buzzer off a couple of times. Virgil, on the other hand, set of the buzzer every single time.

During the second game, he was pretty sure Patton started to make mistakes on purpose. Saying, “oops. My hand slipped” every time the buzzer went off on his turn. It wasn’t until Logan made the buzzer go off trying to get the Adam’s apple during the third game that Virgil finally let his frustration win.

“Alright,” he said crossing his arms to glare at them both, “if I’m really bad enough that _Logan_ starts reverse cheating for me, I think it’s time to call it.”

“Oh… no, sweetie. It’s… just you’ve never played before,” Patton said.

“It’s whatever,” Virgil said with a shrug.

“Hmm,” Logan said. “I have an idea.”

“What?” Virgil asked.

“Well, we’ve hobbled me due to my advantage in order to level the playing field. Perhaps we could give you an advantage, at least until you are more practiced,” Logan suggested.

“Like, I can use my powers and my hands?” Virgil asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Patton agreed. “Plus, it might be good practice! Wanna try another game?”

“Sure,” Virgil agreed. He settled on holding the tweezers with his hand and using a thin shadow to wrap down around them to steady them.

He quickly found he was actually really good at the game with his powers. Like, surprisingly good. Suspiciously good. In fact, he got startled when Missy suddenly stood up and gave a shrill bark because Patton hadn’t fed her any popcorn in a few minutes, and he definitely smacked the edge, but it didn’t buzz.

He paused and tapped the metal bits against each other deliberately. “Did I break it?” he asked.

Logan picked up the tweezers and set them on the edge of the board causing the cartoon man’s nose to light up and the buzzer to go off. “Virgil,” Logan contemplated, “do you think your shadows by any chance block electricity.”

Virgil shrugged. It had never come up.

“Fascinating,” Logan said. “Many light manipulators are good at energy conduction. Perhaps since your shadow powers are an inversion of that, they are some sort of superinsulators. I wonder…”

“You are not shocking Virgil,” Patton said.

“I didn’t suggest…” he hunched his shoulder in at the look he got. “I am not shocking Virgil.”

“…You could shock me a little,” Virgil offered quietly.

“No!” Patton insisted.

“It would only be a low-level voltage,” Logan said, perking up, apparently willing to disregard the warning look on Patton’s face with Virgil’s permission, “and only on shadows disconnected from your body. I think I have a taser somewhere downstairs.”

“You have a taser?” Virgil asked, “Awesome!”

“Absolutely not!”

“He needs to at some point know the extent of his powers, Patton. Wouldn’t it be better to do so in a controlled environment?” Logan argued.

Patton opened his mouth and then closed it. He glared at Logan. “You just want to play with electricity and superpowers.”

“Please Patton,” Virgil said. “We’ll be very careful.”

“Fine,” he said, “but you two will have to be very, _very_ careful.”

“Of course, love,” Logan promised as he leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek. Patton accepted with an eyeroll. “We will take every precaution.” Then he stood up. “Let’s go!”

“Now?” Virgil asked.

“Yes, now!”

“Yes!”

Patton sighed and looked down at the game in front of him as they left the room. “I’ll need to make up new rules for Operation.”


	2. Family Science Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey Logan? Can I tase something.”
> 
> Logan glanced at him and then the taser. “I don’t see why not.”
> 
> Dumb science nerd father and his curiosity-killed-the-cat idiot child play with electricity and superpowers.

Patton and Logan had shown Virgil Logan’s secret superhero basement in the first week he lived with him, but its novelty had yet to wear off. It was just so cool! Honestly, Virgil wasn’t sure if he actually needed most of the things in there. He was starting to grow suspicious that a lot of the basement was an excuse for Logan to tinker with cool sciencey things. For example, who actually needed an entire wall that was a touchscreen computer? Did he actually need a thermal cylinder to test DNA? Why did he need a fireproof testing chamber if he didn’t have fire-starting superpowers?

Virgil did not ask these questions though. Instead, he followed Logan over to a giant cabinet where Logan typed in a code to get one of the drawers to pop open. Virgil raised his eyebrows at the contents. “What’s all of this?”

“This is my nonlethal, electronic weapons drawer.”

“It that a whip?”

“It has wires that can electrify it.”

“Cool, but do you actually ever use it?”

“Well, not typically. There usually isn’t a need.”

“Hmmm. What about that ring?”

“It can turn into a giant shield with forcefield technology.”

“And that?”

“A dart gun whose darts are filled with a fast action sleep drug with technology to allow them to lock on targets.”

“That’s _awesome._ ”

Logan smiled at him wide. “Perhaps we can experiment with some of my weapons some other time, but today we have a task.” He grabbed the taser out of the cabinet and shut it.

“Okay, what should I do?” Virgil asked.

“Come over here,” Logan said. He took him into another room that Virgil had seen once but didn’t know the purpose of. It had a large wooden table in the middle. He walked into a closet and Virgil heard him grabbing some supplies. Logan came back and laid a long thin rod on the table before hooking up some wires to it which he then attached. He attached some other stuff that looked like it might light up to the other end of the wires. “Stand far away from the table please,” he requested, and Virgil took a large step back. He messed with the taser for a moment and then laid the ends against the end of the rod. There was a zapping sound and each of the things attached to the wires lit up and made a little buzzing sound. “Alright. That’ll work well enough. Virgil, could you make one of your shadows, as large as you can maintain indefinitely separated from your body and wrap it around this copper rod?”

“Sure,” Virgil agreed, concentrating for a moment to produce a large shadow as thick as he could.

“Wait a moment,” Logan requested as he set down the taser. “May I?” he asked, hovering a hand over it.

“Go ahead.”

“I’ve never seen you make one quite so tangible before,” Logan noted, touching a hand onto the shadow. “They’re usually rather wispy.” He pinched it lightly and it resisted the pressure for a moment before giving and letting Logan’s fingers touch inside the bounds of the shadow. “Your powers are very interesting. Can you feel when I touch them?”

“Um, sort of. I don’t know.”

He pulled his hand away. “Close your eyes for a moment.” Virgil did. “Tell me when you think I’m touching it.”

Virgil waited for a few moments. “Now,” he said.

“Very good,” Logan replied and Virgil opened his eyes. “You have a sense for when they are being touched. I wonder if it’s similar to how I can sense things with my powers. Not truly a feeling like being touched, but more of an awareness.”

“I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Maybe?”

“Your powers are incredibly intriguing,” Logan mumbled.

“They’re not that cool,” Virgil shrugged.

Logan raised an eyebrow at him. “There are literally no records of such a power that I have ever found and in addition to that, despite being an energy power, they also can be at least somewhat physical and could easily be considered a summoning power. Which means, you have a power that straddles the line between energy and physical powers, a rarity that in most circles is still considered only a theoretical possibility. Your abilities are objectively impressive.”

“Um… oh?”

“If you have no objections, I would like to work with your powers more. Perhaps we could make a training regimen if you don’t object.”

“You’re willing to train me?” Virgil asked a little excited and a lot shocked at the prospect.

Logan tilted his head at Virgil’s reaction and smiled slight. “If I had realized it would have such a positive reaction, I would have offered sooner. I however did not want you to feel pressured into doing so.”

“I’d really like to do that,” he said while trying to not seem too eager. He coughed. “It would be, you know, chill or whatever.”

“We will certainly have to figure something out then if it is so ‘chill’,” Logan said. He got that look on his face that said he’d dived deep down into his own thoughts suddenly. “I’ll have to get a few books on light manipulations powers and maybe some summoning powers,” he mumbled to himself. “Lia and her husband did write that paper on energy measures for mass effective summoning powers. That may be of use in this situation. I wonder if the university library has a copy of the final draft though I know I have the rough draft I reviewed for her. If not, I’m sure Greg would be willing to send me a copy and perhaps he’d know some other sources in the field.” He shook himself. “Anyway, for today, we are testing how well your shadows block electricity. If you would.” He gestured at the copper rod and Virgil moved the shadow to wrap around it.

“Very good,” Logan said. “Now stand back.” Virgil did. Logan touched the prongs to the metal rod again and the sensors didn’t go off. “Hmm. This is a much stronger electrical current than the game. Did you feel anything when I did it?”

Virgil squinted. “Not really but do it again real quick.” Logan did. “Hmm. Maybe just a bit.”

“Would you mind if I directly tased the shadow?”

“Go ahead.”

“Alright, go ahead and unwrap it from the rod first.” Virgil did and he zapped the shadow once, the prongs going slightly into it.

“I felt that one more,” Virgil said. “It didn’t hurt or anything, but I knew you were doing it.”

“Can you describe it?”

Virgil thought for a long time. “It’s like… spicy… but for my bones. But only like Sweet Baby Ray’s Sweet and Spicy BBQ sauce. You know, not even in the yellow on the Buffalo Wild Wings sauce chart. But it’s not like a wet or sticky sensation; more like a dry rub. It’s like that one powdered cheese shake up thing Burger King used to have for their fries but injected into my blood in a way that wouldn’t kill me.”

“That description means nothing to me.”

Virgil shrugged.

“Are you hungry?” Logan asked.

“Not really,” Virgil said. “I just had popcorn.”

“Then why… never mind,” Logan shook his head. “I would like to do one more test if you would be willing.”

“Sure.”

“Would you mind wrapping the shadow around my arm?”

“Are you going to shock yourself?”

“No, I’m going to shock the shadows on my arm.”

That sounded like a technicality considering the shadows could be reached through. Virgil shrugged. “Alright.” Virgil wrapped the shadow around Logan’s arm. Logan moved the taser to his own arm where the shadow was and pressed the button to zap it.

“I felt nothing,” he said, looking at his arm with curiosity. “What about you?”

“Same spicy nacho cheese bone marrow transplant feeling.”

“Well, I’d say, your shadows are definitely a super insulator. Though I do wonder if you could control how much electricity they conduct with some training, but that’s all I wanted to test for today.”

“That would be cool,” Virgil said. “Hey Logan? Can _I_ tase something.”

Logan glanced at him and then the taser. “I don’t see why not.” He handed the taser to Virgil. “Just press this button here,” Logan told him. Virgil nodded and pressed it once Logan leaned back. It made a crackling noise and he jumped, taking his finger off the button. “Here,” Logan offered his arm. “I would appreciate if you made sure to hit the shadows.”

Virgil nodded and pressed the taser prongs against his arm lightly before pressing the button again. He felt the feedback sensation through his shadow again, but Logan wasn’t affected. Virgil giggled a bit. “Electricity is cool.”

“It is,” Logan agreed. “Want to try the rod?” Virgil nodded. He used the taser to make the sensors light up and buzz. Then he got the idea since the different buzzers made slightly different pitched sounds to use his shadows to make them play “Marry Had a Little Lamb.” It didn’t go overly well, but he still found it amusing and Logan seemed to find watching him try it amusing. After a while of messing around with that, Virgil got an even better idea.

“Hey Logan…Do you…” Virgil started. “Have snacks down here?”

Logan blinked at him. “I do, but truly, if you’re hungry we can go upstairs and…”

“Do you have un-popped popcorn down here?”

Logan paused. “I do.”

“Do you think a taser could pop popcorn?”

“…We could try it.”

Which is how they ended up with a bowl of popcorn kernels in Logan’s hands and the taser in Virgil’s.

“Make sure to wrap your front in shadows in case you drop it,” Logan said.

Virgil nodded and covered himself in shadows much like he would when going out as Shadow Caster.

“Ready?” Logan asked.

“Yeah.”

Logan flicked a kernel of popcorn at him and he lunged for it with the taser. He missed wildly, but then it floated back into the air. He smacked it with the taser. It did not pop, but it did create a slight burning smell.

“Try again?” Logan asked.

“Yeah.”

Logan tossed a few more kernels and Virgil tried to hit them with a taser. None of the popcorn popped, but they kept doing it. It became more of a game. Logan made the kernels dance around in the air in different patterns and let them fall to the ground once Virgil managed to smack them. It was kind of like Space Invaders.

Virgil giggled as Logan prepared a new barrage of kernels in midair and readied the taser.

“ _That_ is not careful, Logan!” Patton said from the top of the stairs.

The popcorn kernels fell to the ground. “We were just… the shadows completely block electricity, so he’s protected.”

Patton crossed his arms.

“I… see that I am in trouble.”

“I am always so impressed by your deductive skills my love.”

“…Thank you?”

They stared at each other for a while. “Virgil, honey, please put down that taser and go upstairs.”

“…Right,” Virgil agreed, rushing to obey. He mouthed a ‘sorry’ at Logan before rushing up the stairs.


End file.
